A SAYS reader asked us "Is it true that we need to charge our phone and laptop for 8 hours for the first charge?"

We decided to look the claim up for him and others.

The shortest answer to that question is "NO". However, in order to explain why, it will require a slightly lengthy answer, so bear with us.

The claim we need to charge our gadgets for 8 hours for the first charge was true once upon a time. But that was when our gadgets used Nickel Cadmium batteries.

These days you can charge your (new or old) smartphone and laptop for however long you want. You can even just start using them the moment you bought them at whatever half-charge (usually approx. 60%) they came with if you would like. No harm.

Because Nickel Cadmium batteries had a "memory effect" that meant batteries would maintain a certain capacity based on how they had been charged and discharged. This meant that gadgets often came with advice/warning to charge them fully and keep them plugged in for a certain number of hours before using them.

Now that gadgets come either with Li-Ion or Li-PO batteries and neither type suffer from the "memory effect" syndrome, there is no need to perform any special acrobatics. Both smartphone and laptop are fine to run out of the box without "priming".

That said, however, you shouldn't wait till your gadget's battery is almost exhausted (say below 10%) to recharge it. Recharge when the battery is down to 40% as this increases the battery life.